ARA: Kindle v. Nook

Kindle vs Nook? I want to get my Dad one for Father’s Day and I really have no idea which one is better/easier to navigate. He is not great with technology but has hinted that he wants one. I would love to see if your reader’s had any suggestions for what might be a better match.

41 Responses

I have a kindle and love it – it is very easy to use – it is not color and it is not backlit so if you are reading it in poor light you need to use a book light. I use it at the beach and outside on the deck with no glare issues. You can change the font – for those of us with failing eyesight this is a huge plus and you can have it read to you. I have not used the Nook so I can’t compare but I am a 50’s something woman who loves her Kindle!!!

I have a nook color and absolutly love it. I can do just about everything on it, including apps like angry birds! If your father doesn’t really like technology, and just wants to read, you may want to look at the regular nook. They actually just came out with a new version that has a very long battery life. The regular nook is black and white and not back lit. It basically reads just like a regular book. My dad, who also doen’t really use other technology, has a black and white nook and loves it.

They are very similar hardware wise. The main difference is the Kindle is completely locked down by Amazon, much like Apple and an iPod. Your only source for books is the Amazon store.

A Nook is not, it allows you to load any of the totally free ebooks that are out on the internet. Many of these are the classics. You can also buy books from other sources and the Nook will read them, as well as buying and downloading directly from Barnes and Noble.

Geek,
You are incorrect. You can get books in eformat from various other online sources for the Kindle other than Amazon.
I have a kindle that I got for my birthday in Oct of last year, and since then, I have given three as gifts.
I love it.

I have a Kindle with 3G and really love it. As #1 said, it is not backlit, but I don’t find that a problem. I do love that there is no glare, and that you can change the font size very easily, and the battery lasts me 2-3 weeks between charging even with daily use.

There are thousands of free book on Amazon, including all of the classics. Free books are added pretty much daily. I normally buy my ebooks on line, then transfer them wirelessly to my Kindle, versus buying them directly from the Kindle itself.

I love my Kindle! I use it constantly and couldn’t be happier with it. Geek is correct, you purchase through Amazon, but I don’t see that as a negative aspect. There are a ton of free books available and the ones you buy are significantly discounted. You can get a sample of any book, which is usually the first few chapters, so you can try it before you buy. The latest thing is that you can swap books with other Kindle users. I haven’t tried it yet, but it’s something I’m interested in. Good luck!!

Geek said it all very well.
I got a nook for Christmas and haven’t let it out of my sight since. I may ask for a Kindle for Christmas – just because Amazon does have some good deals. I’m getting my 80 year old Dad a nook for his birthday this month.
My library (mid-Hudson) has books I can download for free. I read my nook out in bright sunlight w/o any trouble; I’ve changed the font size a couple of times. When I have trouble (only had trouble when learning how to download library books), I can go to an actual nook expert right at Barnes and Noble (they’re great!!). Barnes and Noble has many free books and many more books at very reduced rates. I can’t compare to Amazon (I used to buy real books from them all the time) because I don’t use them.

Whatever you pick will be old by the time you get it. These devices are constantly being upgraded and the prices have come down a lot. I like the Kindle, especially because it is not back lit so it is easy to read in the sun. The readers are great for traveling, but there is nothing better than a real book.

Geek- that’s not really true. There are simple programs that will allow you to convert other books into a kindle format on your PC. Library books will also be available to the Kindle later this year.

Amazon has pretty much all of the free classics available for download. I’m in the middle of reading my free copy of Pride and Prejudice on my Kindle right now.

I’m drawn to the Kindle because I LOVE Amazon and they have great customer service. My friend was having an issue with her Kindle, she called customer service and they overnighted her a new one. They don’t hassle you, they’re friendly and they make things right for their customers.

I have a regular nook, and I use it entirely for downloading books from the library. The battery life on the original regular nook is a problem- I have to keep it tethered to an outlet when I’m not reading. When I heard about the Kindle’s 30 day battery life, I was seriously jealous. But the fact that Kindle can’t be used yet for library downloads is unfortunate.
The ability to change font size with the e-readers is great. I love not having to wear my glasses to read.

Ive had my Nook for over a year and love it. You can get free content from Barnes and noble, as well as Google books and books from the library for free. It has expandable memory with an SD card. It also has a ‘lend’ feature to share books. The bottom is a color touch screen so you can see the covers of books and easily scroll through titles. They just came out with a new all touch screen version that looked great. The Color does not have the e-ink so it was may be harder on the eyes. I prefer the e-ink myself.

Does your father like to purchase books now? Before I got my Kindle, I was strictly a library-going girl. The only time I bought a book was when I had to have it the very second it was released. The Kindle e-reader itself is great but as Geek says you can only purchase books from Amazon. Amazon lets the publishers set the price and I have found that books (at least the ones I want to read) are now around $12.99 even if the book has been out for awhile. I read a ton of books each year and would go broke if I paid $12.99 for each book so I find myself going to the library to pick up books I want to read but won’t buy on the Kindle. Yes, they do have some free books but they are usually the classics.

I bought my mom the Nook because it has the ability to download e-books from other places such as the library. The only downside is that like a library book, you do not own the book. You can view the book for a certain amount of time and then it disappears off your device. With the Kindle, I own the book and will have it forever. I think both the Kindle and Nook are great but if I could do it over again I would buy the Nook so I could get more books from the library.

I have a Kindle and my husband has the Nook Color, so we often trade back and forth. Both devices are great, but we both agree that for reading alone, the Kindle is our favorite. It’s light, easy to navigate, awesome to use outdoors, and has a great battery life. The Nook seems to be a little tempermental at times when it comes to turning pages on books – and the battery needs to be charged more often. But, through my local library, you can reserve, and get books downloaded to the Nook. It really comes down to your own personal preference, but it you think your dad might be using it primarily for reading – I think the Kindle is the way to go.

I bought my husband a kindle when he went on his deployment, he loved it. It’s easy to use, holds a ton of books, and you can read it everywhere. However, my issue is that it broke very easily. Some nice older lady wanted to look at it, and then dropped it. The screen did that strange black oozy thing, like graphic calculators used to do? Well, Amazon does not have a program to fix them, so, it is now a busted Kindle. I don’t know if the nook has a service plan, but look into it!

One downside to the Nook, which I’m not sure B&N has fixed yet, is you cannot use Nook internationally, IE you can’t order books while you are abroad. Atleast while my father in law was in europe he had to switch to kindle because he couldn’t get any new books from B&N overseas.

I love my Nook. I’ve had it for about a year now and it’s great. I use the Barnes and Noble website to do most of my purchasing and reviewing books before I buy. I hate their site. It’s the only draw back to the Nook. Amazon’s site is so much easier to use.

I don’t have either, but we got my grandmother a Kindle for Christmas last year. She’s not too technologically saavy, but absolutely loves her Kindle and has read over 50 books just since December. We got her the one with 3G because she’s in a rural area and doesn’t have a lot of access to WiFi, but you definitely don’t need 3G if you do have WiFi access.

Amazon is currently losing a war with large publishers (MacMillan for one)about Kindle pricing. As Lindsey said, they are starting new release prices at just below hardcover prices. When those books go paperback the Kindle price doesn’t go down. Not for at least 1.5 years if it was a popular book. They know you are paying for convenience and the price wont scare away a dedicated customer, like me.
Barnes and Noble and Borders e-books have never been reasonably priced.

I just received the black and white Nook as a b-day gift recently. I LOVE it and will not leave home without it. I did extensive research prior to buying and specifically asked for the black and white version because I do a great deal of outdoor reading and Cnet.com and many other websites said it has the least amount of glare, therefore less eye strain. If your Dad will be using it just for reading I highly suggest the brand new Nook. (I had it in my hands on Friday) It is much smaller and lighter weight than the Kindle or older Nook and has a longer battery life, although I don’t find the battery life to be a problem. (One tip I received was make sure the Wifi is turned off when you don’t need it because it uses the battery life much quicker when turned on.) I had a very bad experience with Kindle for a raffle through work, where I ordered the Kindle and sent it to the raffle winner and Amazon automatically registered the Kindle to my Amazon account and the winner of the raffle was trying to purchase books on my stored credit card. I also love the availability of the Nook “help desk” directly inside the Barnes and Noble store. I have talked extensively with several different people there and each and everyone of them has been extremely helpful.

I produce ePubs through work and yes, Kindle uses a Mobi format, whereas all other eReaders and the iPad, use ePub format. The Kindle is the ONLY device that uses Mobi format, therefore limiting your access to books.

Does anyone have experience reading scanned PDFs (e.g. academic articles) on either one? Been thinking about getting one, but most of my reading is from PDFs downloaded from academic sites (grad school stuff) or scanned articles and chapters (obscure, esoteric things that I can’t get elsewhere).

The paper copies take up a huge chunk of space (in two full-sized filing cabinets), and I’ve converted most to PDFs (we’re talking about several hundred to a thousand, here…).

Leaning toward a kindle for the e-ink, but don’t want to get locked into Amazon’s software too much either.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE my kindle! My mom has a Nook and she’s always talking about the short battery life and the fact that it “looks” like a computer screen. I look at a computer screen all day, the last thing I want to do it read a book on a computer screen. The Kindle doesn’t look like a computer at all. Plus, it holds a ton of books, is nice and lightweight, and I can fit it in my purse!

I have a nook, but these comments have only confirmed my suspicions that there is NO noticable difference between the Nook & kindle. Neither is backlit, both offer free copies of many books (including classics like Pride & prejudice) and both are user friendly. Sorry, but there is no smoking gun when comparing these two.

I personally love the feel of a book, the smell of the new pages, and flipping pages to see what happens next. I would buy a gift certificate to a book store that your dad really likes. I’m probably biased on my opinion though since I’m a library volunteer and a librarian’s daughter. I have seen a friend’s Nook- she looooves it, uses it all the time by the way- and it just doesn’t have the feel of a book, the smell of the new pages, and it makes me think that I’m just reading off a computer screen. :(

My husband and I both have nooks. While both the kindle and the nook are very similar, we chose the nook because it takes ebooks in many more formats, and we can share a B & N account and the ebooks associated with it. Bob is in Iraq right now and has limited access to the internet, but when he fires up his nook the books I bought automatically show up on his device. If dad is technologically challenged the nook might be the way to go. There is also freeware out there that allows you to change between ebook formats (Calibre-ebook.com).

However, I do have to say that the people claiming that the kindle limits you to purchasing from Amazon are dead wrong. Probably half of the books on my kindle come from sources other than Amazon, which is actually a lower percentage than the source of the dead tree books I’ve recently purchased.

Any book (or pdf file or text file) that does not have a DRM can be converted to mobi format. Many, but not all, new books have DRM’s. Still, all of project Gutenburg, many of the science fiction outlets, places like Smashwords, etc offer free or sell books that can be converted to mobi format and read on a kindle. If you have Calibre (and you *should* have calibre) then that program will do the conversion or Amazon will do the conversion for you (gratis). So, you can price shop for ebooks. But I do love clicking a kindle button and a book from the AMZ store instantly appears on the kindle.

Kindle also has the lending program so that you can share books with other people. You always could share books kindles that are tethered to the same AMZ account, but now you can also share with anyone else as well (certain limitations but nothing that is a hindrance). Further, as someone else noted, AMZ recently announced that by the end of the year you will be able to borrow and read library books on the Kindle. Personally, I’m not sure that library lending is all that. You still have to wait for ebooks (nook, kindle or whatever) like you would a dead tree book that’s been checked out. there’s only so many ebook copies in the library, si there is a queue. Also, some libraries, including the consortium of libraries in this area, are having problems with publishers who are starting to make their ebooks expire after so many downloads. This forces the library to keep re-purchasing the ebook, drains resources, etc. I think the consortium here is actually boycotting one of the publishers (can’t recall which one) because of this.

Kindle all the way. I bought the 1st generation Kindle and loved it. Since then i have upgraded to the newest version which is great and easy to use. You forget that you are not reading a paper book with the added benefit that your hand won’t fall asleep when holding a hardcover.

I have a Nook Color and love it. Years ago I applied for a NYC Library card and can get electronic books for free. Then I use Adobe Digital editions and drag them to the Nook when attached to my computer. I also like to shop B&N from my Nook. My screen also has varying degrees of brightness so I never have a problem reading in any type of light.

Nook has a lending program as well as Nook Friends- so I can see what my friends are reading (if they set their preferences to public). I also get my magazines on my nook and the full color is wonderful. I have recently downloaded some free apps like Fliq Tasks and Memo. Great for appointment reminders, making shopping lists, etc. The crossword game that comes with the Nook is also nice. Didn’t have to root my Nook Color- there are over 200 apps available from B&N and the number goes up everyday- from free right up to medical apps that can go to $100.

Any idea where I can purchase the Kindle Fire? I’ve tried going online to Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, Target and FYI with no luck. I am not interested in a used one, which is all Amazon had to offer. Any thoughts?